One last thing about the NYTimes' op-eds and the COVID lab leak. I am not suggesting that the authors "stay in their lane," but if you think you're an expert on everything, you're an expert on very little. 1/
To posit a worldwide conspiracy to hide the laboratory origin of SARSCOV2, rather than a run-of-the-mill explanation (e.g., a virus leaped from animals), requires extraordinary evidence, which one might think would take specialized knowledge. 2/
Perhaps a biologist working on gene therapy & a sociologist have the answers (& they are not just asking questions, they are making a firm case for a lab leak). 3/
But to suggest that perhaps evolutionary virology, infectious disease epidemiology might be requisite skills for an analysis shouldn't be such a shocking thing to say. 4/
And yes, evolutionary virologists and others with specialized knowledge could be wrong; expertise doesn't guarantee wisdom. But in this case, many with experience in study viral origins disagree with the substance of the claims being made for the lab leak. 5/
As everyone has said, knowing the origins of SARSCOV2 may elude us for a long time, but the preponderance of the evidence right now supports a zoonotic origin for the virus. 6/
And just for the record, there are plenty of scientists of every gender working on these issues--to suggest that this is just a sexist attack on the expertise of women is just scurrilous and erases the contributions of women virologists in this field. 7/
It would require a monumental cover-up and doing things in secret. And yet to date - after years of looking - there is not a single piece of documentary evidence suggesting that SC2 was at the WIV before the pandemic. This simple, brutal fact is all you need to know.
Some people overtly express Dunning Kruger. 😌
Some of the smartest people I have met go by the following; the more you learn you realize how much more there is to learn. I find this experience to be humbling in general if you think about it.
Absolutely! I love learning about anything and everything, but sometimes it depresses me to know how much I do know and how very much more there is to learn about. There won’t be enough days if I lived for a century more.
